Little Buddha is a 1994 feature film by Italian director Bernardo Bertolucci, starring Chris Isaak, Bridget Fonda, and Keanu Reeves as Prince Siddhartha (the Buddha before his enlightenment). Made by Bertolucci's regular partner, British producer Jeremy Thomas, it marked the team's return to the East after The Last Emperor.

Tibetan Buddhist monks from a monastery in Bhutan, led by Lama Norbu (Ruocheng Ying), are searching for a child who is the rebirth of a great Buddhist teacher, Lama Dorje (Geshe Tsultim Gyeltsen). Lama Norbu and his fellow monks believe they have found a candidate for the child in whom Lama Dorje is reborn: an American boy named Jesse Conrad (Alex Wiesendanger), the young son of an architect and a teacher who live in Seattle. The monks come to Seattle in order to meet the boy.

Jesse is fascinated with the monks and their way of life, but his parents, Dean (Chris Isaak) and Lisa (Bridget Fonda), are wary, and that wariness turns into near-hostility when Norbu announces that he would like to take Jesse back with him to Bhutan to be tested. Dean changes his mind however, when one of his close friends and colleagues commits suicide because he went broke. Dean then decides to travel to Bhutan with Jesse. In Nepal, two children who are also candidates for the rebirth are encountered, Raju (Rajuh Lal) and Gita (Greishma Makar Singh).